paecmaker
09-28-2011, 12:19 PM
http://generationspel.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/dead-island-570x2911.png
Hello and welcome to my dead island review.
I think I can say safely that most if not everybody atleast have seen the trailer, but is it as good? NO its not.
Story
The story in this game is. The game is set on the holiday paradise island Banoi where a zombie attack has happened. You wake up alone in your room noticing that (surprise) everybodys gone. After a few cutscenes and walkthroughs you make contact with this mysterious guy on the radio and you also get bitten by a zombie and faint. As you wake up you notice that you are accually imune to the zombiefication. The early story is that you must try to make contact again to this guy cause he might got a way out of the island.
gameplay
When you start the game a pretty nice main menu with blood in water shows up, then you have to choose a character. There are four different characters to pick from. A knife expert, a throwing expert, a blunt weapons expert and a firearms expert. These four guys got their own reasons for being on the island and some more background info. Now the game wont change much more than a few skills and what damage you do, there arent any special missions for the characters(not that I have discovered) Even the prologue is similar for all characters.
So the island of Banoi is divided into several parts. Each part is one massive map that lets you run around freely. So when you start there are these so called safe zones. In these places no zombies can attack you and you can find other survivors. The safehouses are the primary place for buying/selling as well as upgrading and fixing you stuff. Its also here you will get most side quests as well as the main quests.
In the different safehouses there are also a fast travel sign that lets you fast travel to any other safe house in all zones. So if you are in zone 1 you can travel to zone 2, if you have found a safe house there. And to come too different zones you have to finish the main quests to a certain degree.
The game is full of side quests, the only problem is that about 70% of those quests are pure fetch quests in different versions. But I can accually forgive atleast some of these quests because its like simple things to keep life going, and it works a bit on the atmosphere.
So how is the accual close combat as a large portion of the game consist of it.
I feel that the combat time to time is accually very clumsy so I often tries to avoid fights when fighting more than a few zombies. Cause all attacks without one(I will get to that later) can be interrupted by the zombies and they also drain fatigue.
The fatigue system is pretty strange, as normal you drain fatigue by sprinting but also when you fight. This means that you cant just wave around trying to hit everything that moves all the time as that will drain your Fatigue, if you drain it you will pant heavily and you can only watch as the zombies munch on you.
As firearms are relativly rare and useless against most zombies you often need to get up close with makeshift weapons, these weapons deteriorate over time dependable on how much you use them and if they are upgraded. I personally think some weapons deteriorate to fast, a baseball bat shouldnt get as bad as a wooden plank after three zombies, and even lesser should a machete be broken after five zombies.
Thankfully you can fix these weapons at certain workbenches, here you can also upgrade your weapons as well as creating new ones for money. Creating weapons are different. In your travels you steal like, everything and these things are needed to make makeshift weapons. But you also need blueprints, these valuable papers you get from quests or just finds them. Each blueprint allows you to make a special weapon if you got the parts. You have a list of all the things you can do in your inventory(yes you got an inventory).
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/files/2011/03/Dead-Island-704x396.jpg
The strange thing is the kicks, these cannot be interrupted and they dont drain fatigue, this makes the kicks the most important weapon in your arsenal as you just kick zombies until they fall and then you just go crazy on their face. However it doesnt damage them much. Now the health system is something you must keep an eye out for, you cant take many blows and the health dont regenerate. To get more health you have to either use a valuable medkit or eat some food(snacks,fruit or energy drinks apparantly).
Its easy to forget the health when you are surrounded by five zombies.
But the game is really forgiving, if you die(witch you will) you respawn 7 seconds later somewhere nearbye. The damage you did to any zombie are still there, its only that you dont know where you respawn, mayby its in a good spot a bit from the zombies or you respawn next to them with your back against them. the only thing you loose when you die is money, the more money you got the more you loose. But its easy to get money.
Another crucial part of the battles are rage. When you kill zombies you get rage and if you got enough rage you can unleash it. Your screen turns red and dependable of what character you play he/she brings out a special weapon and starts slaughtering zombies.
Dead island uses a level system so when you level up you get to choose a skill. There are three skill trees, Survival, combat and rage. Survival is as it sounds, medkits give more health, makes it easier to sneak(or run) and so on. Combat increases your attack capabilities, like deal more damage with certain weapons. This change dependaple of what character you choosed, for example sharp weapons expert has that swinging sharp weapons deal 15% more damage. And rage is your persons special attack tree. this also depends on what character you got but mostly its that each kill gain more rage, and rage last longer and so on.
Even if most of your combat is in close range firearms are also present. The ammo are way to costly to use on normal zombies so keep it until you face something more dangerous, and it sucks against normal zombies.
Surprisingly you will encounter more hostile humans the more the game goes. These are mostly either crazy survivors or just lousy criminals but in the jungles there are also well armed smugglers and guerillas. The firearms are accually some of the best weapons against humans as one shot to the head accually kills a person in one( or two) shots.
But there are special sorts of zombies
Walkers, these are the ordinary walking corpses, easy to kill but dangerous in packs. Not so fast
Infected, these are runners. They attack mostly in smaller groups of two and they hit fast and run fast, however they cant withstand much punishment.
Thug, these are normal zombies except that they are twice as high, almost immobile and deals lot of damage as well as most attacks makes you fall(strangely zombies dont attack you if you lie down)
suiciders, the name sais it all, either throw your weapon or shoot them.
Ram, these guys look more scary than they are, just avoid their charge and hit them in the back.
Floaters, just like a boomer in l4d, try to take them with electric weapons
butchers, the most dangerous enemy. these special enemies run at you extremly fast and they do huge damage, and they look scary. [SPOILER]
The multiplayer in the game is like stolen directly from L4D, you can play up to four player, one playing as each character, However as usual I cant play it so this review is mostly for SP only.
I list a few things that Mordry told me, quoting.
"In Co-op Mode only ONE gets the blueprint after a Quest, only with a blueprint you can craft the weapon written on it. That's a huge problem in 4-player co-op mod.
The game does NOT support 5.1 and 7.1 Audio Settings, People with Logitech Headsets are getting their ears killed because the game still can't handle it and just make loud noisy sounds with volume 100%." plus the bugs are worser.
So are there things I didnt like? Yes.
The game is full of bugs and I hate the escort missions,
Some spoilers about a mission
[SPOILER]The mission where you have to escort the native guy Ope is probably the worst I have played, I threw a molotov cocktail into a zombie hoard and he just runs in there and dies, and I also encountered a gamebreaking bug that when he is in one certain position he just turned around and started going back. I had to restart the game three times before he accually continued the right way again. Also this place is frickin hard, I died all the way during this misison and when I got to the boat I thought it was over, then it continued in the other zone and even more. WORST PLANNED MISSION EVER.
http://i.testfreaks.se/images/products/600x400/126/dead-island.32816510.jpg
The checkpoint system also sucks, you cant save by yourself but need to go through a checkpoint. And if you quit and thinks that the game will start where you stopped think again, you will start in the nearest safe house and unless you completed the quest you have to do it again.
Another thing is that sometimes the game is not thought over, its this woman that wants something to drink(water) yet the house is FULL of energy drinks. And that the zombies respawning isnt that bad but when they special zombies respawn.
I remember in the beginning, I was walking on the beach. Suddenly I hear a roar and looks around, I see this zombie standing and punching at a small dressing room, I kill him and opens the dressing room and there stands another zombie jumping at me.
I dont think more of that and keeps on walking, about 30 minutes later when I come back I see another zombie standing in the exact same place punching at the exact same door and in there is another zombie.
With all the fetch quests there will be lots and lots of walking around, there are cars(on all the number plates it stands dead island, in L33T speak) but they arent so fun driving.
Another thing I dont like are the characters, They are almost as dead as the zombies, looking out in the horizon with their empty and dead eyes. And when they ahve a mission they will call for you waving their arms even if you stand next to them.
graphics, sound and AI
The different zones differ lots in colours, in the beaches and resorts its light colours while in the city its dark colours and more creepy. The resort is accually kinda nice and if there arent any zombies nearbye it looks accually pretty beautiful. The graphics does it job and it isnt the best looking game but its far from the worst. However the zombies look a bit strange in close up.
The sounds, the city is full of creepy sounds but sometimes I feel like its a bit to much, you dont really get the creepy feeling when you hear lots of strange noises yet you know you are alone. the zombies sounds a lot, and every zombie got it own sound. Mostly normal zombies moan about all the time so sometimes when they sneak up and just grab you without a noise it can get pretty jumpy, and I hate when the infected(running zombies) just jumps out of a dark alley screams and runs at you from behind, I almost guarantee that you will jump of that atleast one time.
The AI is very stupid, this doesnt do much thought cause zombies are meant to be stupid, the only thing is that the survivors are also stupid. If you escort someone they will go straight into or run just pass hordes of zombies that will chase you and you have to deal with them as the guys move alone and getting killed by other zombies. When you are facing human enemies they accually take cover, but then they dont do much more than just shoot now and then.
overall
Dead island is an open world zombie game, the game borrows much from games like L4D and dead rising. You play as someone thats imune to the zombie thing and that forces you to do everybodys work. This game is full of quests and you get new quests all the time. the game isnt particulary scary eithen if some dark parts can be creepy and there are a few jumpy moments. The graphics in the game does it work good but it wont win any awards, howver the setting is better. The world is divided into several parts where each part is considerably different from the others. The game is however full of different bugs and problems as well as strange things but all in all its a pretty good and addicting over violent game.
Ah yes before I forget, what the game looses in stability and feeling it gets in pure brutality, you break legs, arms skulls and most weapons feel brutal, blood splatters everywhere. I tried with a new weapon and was surrounded by four zombies. When I was done the floor and walls was red by blood, there was laying four bloody and tormented bodies while arms and legs was flewn across the place.
points
Gameplay- 6/10 The gameplay suffers lots of different bugs and I encountered atleast one gamebreaking bug, however if they fix it the gameplay should be a 7 even if its pretty repetating
Graphics- 8/10 the graphics work eithen if the close details isnt the best, however the game is set mostly in broad daylight wich gives it an another feeling. However there are points in the game that looks wonderful also.
sound- 8/10 The sounds are mostly nice, one or two times th echaracters got bad voice but the zombies sounds creepy but sometimes the ambient sounds take over to much.
Atmosphere- 6/10 there are a few points in the game you feel sorry for the characters but most of them cant seem to care that their loved ones are undead. And sometimes the zombies act just to hilarious to be creepy.
total- 7/10 its not the game we hoped it to be, the fights are not as fluent I hoped it to be. There are way more bugs than I wanted it to be. But its still highly addicive and a pretty good zombie game.
Hello and welcome to my dead island review.
I think I can say safely that most if not everybody atleast have seen the trailer, but is it as good? NO its not.
Story
The story in this game is. The game is set on the holiday paradise island Banoi where a zombie attack has happened. You wake up alone in your room noticing that (surprise) everybodys gone. After a few cutscenes and walkthroughs you make contact with this mysterious guy on the radio and you also get bitten by a zombie and faint. As you wake up you notice that you are accually imune to the zombiefication. The early story is that you must try to make contact again to this guy cause he might got a way out of the island.
gameplay
When you start the game a pretty nice main menu with blood in water shows up, then you have to choose a character. There are four different characters to pick from. A knife expert, a throwing expert, a blunt weapons expert and a firearms expert. These four guys got their own reasons for being on the island and some more background info. Now the game wont change much more than a few skills and what damage you do, there arent any special missions for the characters(not that I have discovered) Even the prologue is similar for all characters.
So the island of Banoi is divided into several parts. Each part is one massive map that lets you run around freely. So when you start there are these so called safe zones. In these places no zombies can attack you and you can find other survivors. The safehouses are the primary place for buying/selling as well as upgrading and fixing you stuff. Its also here you will get most side quests as well as the main quests.
In the different safehouses there are also a fast travel sign that lets you fast travel to any other safe house in all zones. So if you are in zone 1 you can travel to zone 2, if you have found a safe house there. And to come too different zones you have to finish the main quests to a certain degree.
The game is full of side quests, the only problem is that about 70% of those quests are pure fetch quests in different versions. But I can accually forgive atleast some of these quests because its like simple things to keep life going, and it works a bit on the atmosphere.
So how is the accual close combat as a large portion of the game consist of it.
I feel that the combat time to time is accually very clumsy so I often tries to avoid fights when fighting more than a few zombies. Cause all attacks without one(I will get to that later) can be interrupted by the zombies and they also drain fatigue.
The fatigue system is pretty strange, as normal you drain fatigue by sprinting but also when you fight. This means that you cant just wave around trying to hit everything that moves all the time as that will drain your Fatigue, if you drain it you will pant heavily and you can only watch as the zombies munch on you.
As firearms are relativly rare and useless against most zombies you often need to get up close with makeshift weapons, these weapons deteriorate over time dependable on how much you use them and if they are upgraded. I personally think some weapons deteriorate to fast, a baseball bat shouldnt get as bad as a wooden plank after three zombies, and even lesser should a machete be broken after five zombies.
Thankfully you can fix these weapons at certain workbenches, here you can also upgrade your weapons as well as creating new ones for money. Creating weapons are different. In your travels you steal like, everything and these things are needed to make makeshift weapons. But you also need blueprints, these valuable papers you get from quests or just finds them. Each blueprint allows you to make a special weapon if you got the parts. You have a list of all the things you can do in your inventory(yes you got an inventory).
http://blog.eu.playstation.com/files/2011/03/Dead-Island-704x396.jpg
The strange thing is the kicks, these cannot be interrupted and they dont drain fatigue, this makes the kicks the most important weapon in your arsenal as you just kick zombies until they fall and then you just go crazy on their face. However it doesnt damage them much. Now the health system is something you must keep an eye out for, you cant take many blows and the health dont regenerate. To get more health you have to either use a valuable medkit or eat some food(snacks,fruit or energy drinks apparantly).
Its easy to forget the health when you are surrounded by five zombies.
But the game is really forgiving, if you die(witch you will) you respawn 7 seconds later somewhere nearbye. The damage you did to any zombie are still there, its only that you dont know where you respawn, mayby its in a good spot a bit from the zombies or you respawn next to them with your back against them. the only thing you loose when you die is money, the more money you got the more you loose. But its easy to get money.
Another crucial part of the battles are rage. When you kill zombies you get rage and if you got enough rage you can unleash it. Your screen turns red and dependable of what character you play he/she brings out a special weapon and starts slaughtering zombies.
Dead island uses a level system so when you level up you get to choose a skill. There are three skill trees, Survival, combat and rage. Survival is as it sounds, medkits give more health, makes it easier to sneak(or run) and so on. Combat increases your attack capabilities, like deal more damage with certain weapons. This change dependaple of what character you choosed, for example sharp weapons expert has that swinging sharp weapons deal 15% more damage. And rage is your persons special attack tree. this also depends on what character you got but mostly its that each kill gain more rage, and rage last longer and so on.
Even if most of your combat is in close range firearms are also present. The ammo are way to costly to use on normal zombies so keep it until you face something more dangerous, and it sucks against normal zombies.
Surprisingly you will encounter more hostile humans the more the game goes. These are mostly either crazy survivors or just lousy criminals but in the jungles there are also well armed smugglers and guerillas. The firearms are accually some of the best weapons against humans as one shot to the head accually kills a person in one( or two) shots.
But there are special sorts of zombies
Walkers, these are the ordinary walking corpses, easy to kill but dangerous in packs. Not so fast
Infected, these are runners. They attack mostly in smaller groups of two and they hit fast and run fast, however they cant withstand much punishment.
Thug, these are normal zombies except that they are twice as high, almost immobile and deals lot of damage as well as most attacks makes you fall(strangely zombies dont attack you if you lie down)
suiciders, the name sais it all, either throw your weapon or shoot them.
Ram, these guys look more scary than they are, just avoid their charge and hit them in the back.
Floaters, just like a boomer in l4d, try to take them with electric weapons
butchers, the most dangerous enemy. these special enemies run at you extremly fast and they do huge damage, and they look scary. [SPOILER]
The multiplayer in the game is like stolen directly from L4D, you can play up to four player, one playing as each character, However as usual I cant play it so this review is mostly for SP only.
I list a few things that Mordry told me, quoting.
"In Co-op Mode only ONE gets the blueprint after a Quest, only with a blueprint you can craft the weapon written on it. That's a huge problem in 4-player co-op mod.
The game does NOT support 5.1 and 7.1 Audio Settings, People with Logitech Headsets are getting their ears killed because the game still can't handle it and just make loud noisy sounds with volume 100%." plus the bugs are worser.
So are there things I didnt like? Yes.
The game is full of bugs and I hate the escort missions,
Some spoilers about a mission
[SPOILER]The mission where you have to escort the native guy Ope is probably the worst I have played, I threw a molotov cocktail into a zombie hoard and he just runs in there and dies, and I also encountered a gamebreaking bug that when he is in one certain position he just turned around and started going back. I had to restart the game three times before he accually continued the right way again. Also this place is frickin hard, I died all the way during this misison and when I got to the boat I thought it was over, then it continued in the other zone and even more. WORST PLANNED MISSION EVER.
http://i.testfreaks.se/images/products/600x400/126/dead-island.32816510.jpg
The checkpoint system also sucks, you cant save by yourself but need to go through a checkpoint. And if you quit and thinks that the game will start where you stopped think again, you will start in the nearest safe house and unless you completed the quest you have to do it again.
Another thing is that sometimes the game is not thought over, its this woman that wants something to drink(water) yet the house is FULL of energy drinks. And that the zombies respawning isnt that bad but when they special zombies respawn.
I remember in the beginning, I was walking on the beach. Suddenly I hear a roar and looks around, I see this zombie standing and punching at a small dressing room, I kill him and opens the dressing room and there stands another zombie jumping at me.
I dont think more of that and keeps on walking, about 30 minutes later when I come back I see another zombie standing in the exact same place punching at the exact same door and in there is another zombie.
With all the fetch quests there will be lots and lots of walking around, there are cars(on all the number plates it stands dead island, in L33T speak) but they arent so fun driving.
Another thing I dont like are the characters, They are almost as dead as the zombies, looking out in the horizon with their empty and dead eyes. And when they ahve a mission they will call for you waving their arms even if you stand next to them.
graphics, sound and AI
The different zones differ lots in colours, in the beaches and resorts its light colours while in the city its dark colours and more creepy. The resort is accually kinda nice and if there arent any zombies nearbye it looks accually pretty beautiful. The graphics does it job and it isnt the best looking game but its far from the worst. However the zombies look a bit strange in close up.
The sounds, the city is full of creepy sounds but sometimes I feel like its a bit to much, you dont really get the creepy feeling when you hear lots of strange noises yet you know you are alone. the zombies sounds a lot, and every zombie got it own sound. Mostly normal zombies moan about all the time so sometimes when they sneak up and just grab you without a noise it can get pretty jumpy, and I hate when the infected(running zombies) just jumps out of a dark alley screams and runs at you from behind, I almost guarantee that you will jump of that atleast one time.
The AI is very stupid, this doesnt do much thought cause zombies are meant to be stupid, the only thing is that the survivors are also stupid. If you escort someone they will go straight into or run just pass hordes of zombies that will chase you and you have to deal with them as the guys move alone and getting killed by other zombies. When you are facing human enemies they accually take cover, but then they dont do much more than just shoot now and then.
overall
Dead island is an open world zombie game, the game borrows much from games like L4D and dead rising. You play as someone thats imune to the zombie thing and that forces you to do everybodys work. This game is full of quests and you get new quests all the time. the game isnt particulary scary eithen if some dark parts can be creepy and there are a few jumpy moments. The graphics in the game does it work good but it wont win any awards, howver the setting is better. The world is divided into several parts where each part is considerably different from the others. The game is however full of different bugs and problems as well as strange things but all in all its a pretty good and addicting over violent game.
Ah yes before I forget, what the game looses in stability and feeling it gets in pure brutality, you break legs, arms skulls and most weapons feel brutal, blood splatters everywhere. I tried with a new weapon and was surrounded by four zombies. When I was done the floor and walls was red by blood, there was laying four bloody and tormented bodies while arms and legs was flewn across the place.
points
Gameplay- 6/10 The gameplay suffers lots of different bugs and I encountered atleast one gamebreaking bug, however if they fix it the gameplay should be a 7 even if its pretty repetating
Graphics- 8/10 the graphics work eithen if the close details isnt the best, however the game is set mostly in broad daylight wich gives it an another feeling. However there are points in the game that looks wonderful also.
sound- 8/10 The sounds are mostly nice, one or two times th echaracters got bad voice but the zombies sounds creepy but sometimes the ambient sounds take over to much.
Atmosphere- 6/10 there are a few points in the game you feel sorry for the characters but most of them cant seem to care that their loved ones are undead. And sometimes the zombies act just to hilarious to be creepy.
total- 7/10 its not the game we hoped it to be, the fights are not as fluent I hoped it to be. There are way more bugs than I wanted it to be. But its still highly addicive and a pretty good zombie game.